My mother and I traveled on Costa Luminosa from Venice to Greek Islands ( August 24 - September 1). This was our first cruise so we went with an open mind and not really knowing what to expect. We had a balcony room thank goodness I can't imagine a room without a balcony - so that was a positive. Waking up and having a coffee on the balcony was really nice. We are Canadian - English speaking and found language to be a barrier most of the time. Some cruise employees knew English but far and few between and when we needed assistance the limited English on board became an issue. Be prepared to hear a lot of Italian by fellow cruisers and employees - They do announce things in English but it is not very clear and can be easily missed. Overall, I found the Italians to be rude on board - pushy and always butting in line and smoking in your face. The food at the buffet was nothing special. I have stayed at all inclusive resorts for fraction of the cost with better food. Trying to find a seat at the buffet was impossible most days we had to sit with other people and the tables then became crammed.That being said the Taurus restaurant for dinner always had a good and unique selection. Rooms service was good - always cleaned on time and enough room to be comfortable. Drink package - this DOES NOT mean alcohol - the only thing that is included in the base fair is water from the tap..... I did not know this and my travel agent did not advise me of this. Juices, pops, coffee, tea , cappuccino is all extra - if this is something you want I would look into that drink package. A coffee in the morning in the room cost 1.55 Euros..... botttle of water 3.00 Euro. The Ports we traveled to were all unique and different - also know that you can get same excursions on land as what Costa offers for fraction of the cost.... once you get into port there are locals and agencies who have same tours - we never had an issue doing tours this way. Overall I wouldn't travel Costa again due to lack of food quality, language barrier and felt like because we weren't Italian we were looked down upon. Pack your patience if you travel Costa..... Read Less

This is my third cruise with Costa and I loved it. Now I am a Perla level Costa Club member. We choose this cruise because of the itinerary: Venice, Bari, Argostoli, Santorini, Mykonos and Katakolon/Olympia. We had mini suite 4303 with a corner balcony with a 270 degrees view (windy by the way). The embarkation in Venice was quick and efficient and the departure from Venice is just stunning. Our mini suite was spacious with a very nice bathroom and a shower with glass door and panel, not a curtain. Cabin steward Aileen was very nice. Now let me talk about the food, it was just splendid. Other cruise lines charge you to eat Italian in a speciality restaurant. In Costa, you have all the Italian food you want included in your cruise price and we also had the"brindiamo" drink package included. So we drank many Proseccos, beers and wine by the glass in addition to juices and coffees (Illy Italian brand which is wonderful). The lunch buffet was amazing with a lot of stuff to choose from. Dinners are a wonderful trip around all the regions of Italy (Campania, Liguria, Sicilia, Lazio, etc.). They were truly gourmet dinners. Read Less

Too many people.Too many italians. Too many childs. At the restaurant slow service and bad food and wine, Buffet with limited choice and poor quality. Difficult to find a seat at the buffet. Absolutely unsatisfactory breakfast. Cabins not cleaned well and ready only after 1 or 2 p.m. Rude staff at the reception desk. Poor entertainement and excursions too expensive. Slow and confusing boarding procedures. Difficult to find a seat during the shows. Approximate cleaning of common areas. Staff completely insufficient for the size of the ship. Long waits to talk to someone at the reception. No information provided to those who do not buy the excursions and who want to use public transport. You have to pay for everything. Bad experince overall. Definitively we have spent a lot of money to get a similar treatment to a scheduled ferry. Excluding Rome, the itinerary is not so interesting. Never again! Any usefull information to save money: MARSEILLE: use the free shuttle bus provided by the port Authority (500 yd from ship); BARCELONA: use the PUBLIC shuttle bus from cruise terminal; PALMA: use the PUBLIC BUS from cruise terminal to city center; CAGLIARI: the city center is just in front of you. Visit the city by yourself; ROMA: Be careful not to use unauthorized taxis. Best way is to go to ROMA SANPIETRO by train (www.trenitalia.com). Alternatively you may buy the only trasportation with a bus company at exit of the port. Read Less

I am returning from a Costa Cruise on Costa Luminosa. I spent ca. $10,000 for a suite, a cabin with a balcony and on board extras. This was my first time with Costa. Although I did enjoy my food experience in the special restaurant that is assigned in my category, I will NOT travel Costa in the future for the following reasons: - it is not until I wrote to Costa that I got an itemized onboard expenses summary. - it is impossible to sleep well on board as their ships don't seem to be sound proof. More specifically: cabin doors at poorly designed and people tend to party in the hallway. I did not have a noise problem on Celebrity or Royal Carribeans. - the spa was huge (a big plus) but it is not relaxing at all: my first treatment was poorly scheduled as I could not participate in the mandatory drill. - it is not easy to have the staff stick to the price that was discussed at the spa. Sorry Costa: I do like the italian vibes of the people onboard, but it was not relaxing at all considering all the money I spent. Read Less

This was our first cruise. We needed a cruise that fit in with pre-allocated holidays at work and also to discover somewhere new. The Western Mediterranean ports have mostly been visited on other, non cruising holidays, so we wanted the Eastern Mediterranean and chose a cruise from Venice on Costa Luminosa. Some of the points highlighted in this review may seem trivial to seasoned cruisers but we had 101 questions before our cruise so hopefully this review may help others who are/were in the same situation as ourselves. To anyone like ourselves I would say "don't worry. A lot of things become self explanatory once on board" There are lots of variables when booking a cruise and I did some hefty research on sites like Cruise Critic. Some of the items we booked were merely a "fluke" like getting a drinks package included. We booked around 7 months in advance on the Costa website and chose a Premium Balcony cabin. This allowed us to choose the cabin we wanted and we opted for cabin 7260 which was mid-ship on the left hand side and had cabins above and below us to minimize the noise from bars, disco's, engines, theatre and the sundeck. As mentioned this also included the Brindiamo drinks package - more later. Also, by choosing this type of cabin we could specify preferences about meal times and we chose the first sitting (18:45) and specified a table for two in the upstairs dining room. My wife is on a Gluten Free diet so, a few days after booking, I telephoned Costa in Genoa and told them about the special request. We were advised that they could only guarantee gluten free food if we ate in the main dining room. They advised us not to eat in the buffet for this reason. We paid our deposit and I made a note to myself and paid the balance about 8 weeks in advance. Whilst the initial booking could be done online we could only pay the balance by telephone. Approximately 3 weeks before travel we received an email from Costa with boarding forms and luggage labels which we had to print out ourselves. We traveled from the UK to Venice by train and stayed the night before the cruise in a hotel in Mestre which is a few miles from Venice on the mainland. Our documentation from Costa said that boarding began at 14:00 so we headed from Mestre to Venice late morning and had a bite to eat. From Santa Lucia railway station in Venice it's a steady 25 minute walk to the cruise terminal. There's also a people mover which costs 1.50 Euro's and would reduce this transit time to about 12 minutes. Once at the port (at about 14:05) we handed our suitcases over and were given embarkation number 15. We proceeded to a waiting room and discovered that they were processing group number 12. We sat and waited for a short time before they called number 15. There were long queues but we seemed to move quickly. After checking in we had the obligatory pose for the camer-man and headed to the ship. It took exactly 1 hour from arriving at the terminal to getting to our cabin. The cabin was excellent. Plenty of room. A decent sized en-suite. Balcony with two chairs and a small table. Mini-Bar and a comfy bed. There was a selection of fruit and biscuits for us and a sign saying that they were gluten free (as we had told them). It was my wife's birthday on the day of boarding and there was a birthday card from the captain waiting for her in the cabin. On the bed were our Costa Cards, and some other information. At this point we discovered that people were allowed on-board from 11:45. So we had been killing time all morning waiting when we could have been on the ship 2-3 hours earlier. We had read many articles suggest things to do during the first few hours onboard. To put it mildly, we were overwhelmed. I think initially someone had suggested the pool. We didn't get this far until day 3 ! Each day a "Diary de Bordo" is delivered to your cabin. This shows navigation, weather and entertainment information and also information about shore excursions (where to meet and at what time etc). However, something that we almost missed was the "Welcome meeting" which was done at 15:30 in the Grand Bar Ellectra for English speaking guests. We found this very useful and would strongly suggest that any novice cruisers like ourselves seek this out on the first afternoon. We were advised that "English Speaking Guests" totaled 440 on this cruise. English speaking guests are those who don't communicate in the main languages used (French / German and Italian but not Russian). So included in this number were Swedish, Norwegian and Brazilian nationalities as well as British, Amercan and Canadians etc. I believe there was also a Russian host on board but ship announcements were not made in Russian. Whilst I am not privy to exact numbers I would estimate that the cruise consisted of 40% Italian, 25% German, 25% French and 10% split between other nationalities. It was rare to hear any other guest speak English on board. Most of the ships activities are on decks 2, 3 and 9. It's a beautiful ship. Very clean and well maintained. It was interesting to watch the officers do their inspections and pick up on the tiniest area that wasn't clean enough and tell staff to clean it. The Costa Card :- in our cabin was a Costa Card. This was our "passport" to the ship for the next week. It opened the cabin door and was used to obtain services on board. It was shown (and scanned) when leaving on shore excursions and likewise when returning to the ship. As our cabin included certain drinks we had to show it whenever ordering a drink. Each bar has a drinks menu. Next to each drink is a colour code representing the various drinks packages. I believe a grey dot represented a drink included in our package. Should we have ordered a drink that was not included in the package we would have been given a receipt and this amount debited to our room. Drinks on board generally ranged from 3 to 6 Euros. We subsequently discovered that our drinks package would have cost us 27 Euro's per day - that's between 5 and 9 drinks per day to make it worthwhile. We probably had about 5. Drinks that are included in your package convey no surcharge. However, anything not included has a 15% surcharge levied. Free water is available (by the glass) in the buffet area and pool area at the rear of the ship. Bottled water costs 1.70 Euro's (plus service charge) for 0.5 litres. One thing worth noting is that we were told that for environmental reasons all drinks are by the glass. When ordering a Pepsi it was poured from a 330ml can into a glass holding 250ml. What happened to the last bit I have no idea but we never saw them "recycle" a drink by pouring a bit from one can and the rest from another. The main dining seemed to be quieter (and smaller) on deck 3 rather than deck 2. Our waiter said the later sitting was the busiest. We found the food the be excellent. Yes, there is an Italian theme but also plenty of choices that are not just pasta. Each evening my wife was given a special "Gluten Free" menu which generally contain choices not available on the standard menu. Our waiter was slightly dour on the first day and we recalled some bad reviews with trepidation. However, we joked with him, talked to him and, by the end of the cruise felt that he was one of our best friends. A truly warm, genuine person. The cabin steward was also a very kind, warm person. Always smiling and kept the cabin in immaculate condition. When we got to the cabin on the first afternoon we could choose the time that would suit us best for it to be cleaned. We opted for the afternoon/evening as we would normally be having dinner. We had a very slight problem with a light not working and the cabin steward immediately stopped everything he was doing to fix it (it transpires that a previous guest had unplugged it) The bar staff were also great. Often remembering who arrived for drinks in what order and dealing with 3 people at once. On our subsequent feedback questionnaire to Costa we rated the ships officers quite badly as they hardly spoke and were miserable. However, without exception, the "normal" staff were incredibly attentive and cheerful. If you engage with them you would be treat like royalty. I received a free drink at the bar one day because, he said, " I had made him smile". Also, I had a daily ritual with one of the chefs at breakfast. Early in the cruise she was singing "You are my sunshine" as it was a beautiful sunny day. As the week progressed I asked her about the song of the day. As she normally was cooking omelets we had songs like "How do you like you eggs in the morning" and "Smile" though we changed the words a little from "Smile though your heart is aching" to "Smile though your eggs are breaking". Even though my wife was on a Gluten free diet we did use the buffet area on more than one occasion. My wife has an intolerance to wheat but if we are sensible we can work out what foods are likely to contain this substance. By 8am the buffet was busy. As early risers we were there at 7-7.30 and it was almsot deserted. The buffet restaurant opened about 11.30 for lunch. Usually at this time (until about midday) it wasn't that busy. However by 12:30 people were hunting for tables. There are four main serving areas. However there may be small variation with what's available at each one. For example, one may have carrots whilst another one may have the carrots swapped for Broccoli. Unless you are really picky and desperate there is certainly no need to visit more than one serving station. We only visited the buffet once in the evening and this was at 8pm and found it to be quiet. There is some repetition of food and some dishes (potato wedges appeared every night) In the main dining room you have an allocated table for evening meal but you are shown to a seat at Breakfast and Lunch which could be anywhere and generally only on deck 2 (the upstairs restaurant is only open on an evening). We had breakfast in the main dining room once and was bitterly disappointed. There is a small buffet area and you can also order one of a themed breakfast - so they had an American breakast, an English breakfast a Norwegian brekfast etc. We found, on the English breakfast that the bacon was like charcoal and the egg very "snotty". However for lunch and evening meal the food was spectacular. The portions are not huge but the menu is based on having 4 or 5 courses. We really enjoyed our meals and found them to well presented and very tasty. Dress code was varied. Each night there was a theme. Red & Black night / White night / Mask night. I would estimate that only 10% of guests actually took heed of this. People were having meals in shorts and t-shirts - even on gala night. The theatre has two showings. (I believe) at 19:30 if you have a late meal and 21:30 if you have an early sitting for dinner. Each show lasts 35-40 minutes. The first night was a magician who was "ok". Other nights we thoroughly enjoyed each show. One reviewer said "slapstick". We would vehemently disagree. Each announcement was made in Italian, French, German and English. Some people have said this was tedious. However we are an English couple sailing from Italy to the Greek islands. How lucky were we that they even took the time to speak English ? In our opinion - very ! Every member of staff was fluent in all the aforementioned languages. Also, we found it nice to be part of the minority. If, as an English couple, we wanted to be surrounded by English speaking people and visit a destination where everyone spoke English then we could have gone to Skegness. It was an eye-opener in our last port as a cruise ship with predominantly English speaking guests was also in port. Suddenly everywhere in town were British people and it spoilt what I would describe as the "exclusivity". We found the majority of other passengers to be miserable and very bad mannered. The staff would pass you and say "hello, Good morning". You would have been lucky to get a scowl from other guests. At the bar I would say " a cappuccino please". Many, many times I heard other nationalities just say "expresso" or "pepsi". No manners ! Needless to say that their bad manners persisted on shore excursions and meal times. We booked all of our shore excursions through Costa as we were unsure what would happen with self booked tours. This was, to us the worst part of our cruise. Generally, with fewer English speaking guests we shared our coach with other nationalities. French one day, Italian the next etc - however all announcements were multi-lingual Bari - Sassi de Matera We were in port for 6 hours but this tour took 5.5 hours. We were rushed with hardly any time for toilet stops. An audio/visual presentation was made in a cave. The tour guide cut in half way through say "got to go". We were given 30 minutes of free time at the end and told to meet "back here at 17:30". At 17:25 the tour guide took us back the coach, as she was in such a hurry, leaving some guests behind and a couple of these must have been in their 80's. Of course we were then delayed whilst she went back to find them... Keffalonia - Caves/Lake/Beach The visit to the beach was to "look at it" from 1000ft up a maintain. The caves and lake were good but very long queues for the lake (1 hour queue) Santorini - Oia and Fira Excellent tour guide. Excursion spoilt by very long wait to use the cable car. Queuing for 1 hour to use it. Worried about making the last tender back to the boat Mykonos- walking tour of Mykonos Waste of money. Tour guide took us on a 1 hour walk around Mykonos. "here's a windmill", "this is a shop", "that's a church". We discovered more in our own time that with him. Katakolon - Olympia We got a coach from Katakolon to Olympia with entrance included but no tour guide. We were disappointed by the short time we had there and also the lack of signage in Olympia telling you what things were. At the end of the cruise we were disappointed to leave. Whilst we didn't participate in many of the activities available time went by quickly - even our last day- at sea. We are now looking forward to our next cruise - but would like to try another company for comparison. Considering all of the negative reviews on Cruise Critic about Costa we were very impressed and they exceeded our expectations. I use an old adage "behavior breeds behavior". Treat the staff with courtesy and respect and they will treat you like royalty. The poor shore excursions and bad mannered, rude fellow travellers has stopped me rating this as 5* Even though we would like to try another cruise line we would not hesitate to book with Costa again. Read Less

When arriving on the ship there was a lot of confusion and our rooms were not ready. Once getting into our rooms it took another 2 hours for my bag to arrive. There was many things that were not included on this cruise which is not stated on the website. The entertainment was really bad. I have been on 3 cruises before this one and could not believe how boring the entertainment was. For good entertainment and value for money I would go on the Royal Caribbean again. I have been on the Royal Caribbean 3 times now and I can never fault it. There was not much to do for the children and the entertainment during the day was very boring. The food was also bad. When ordering meals you were unsure of what each one was and it would come out looking like it was chucked on the plate. When waiting to get a drink it took forever to find someone to order. Most of the time we just gave up and didn't order any drinks. I went on the cruise with my sister and her family and having them for company was good. It is a good cruise if you just want to relax as there isn't much happening when you are on the boat. Read Less

We chose this cruise because of the great port calls; Italy, athens, olympia, Kotor, and Split. The destinations did not disappoint. They were fantastic and we avoided much of the crowds by cruising in the winter. Unfortunately, we did not have a chance to explore Venice before our cruise departed as Easyjet canceled the flight. Needless to say, we had to scramble to find alternative transportation to Venice and it cost us an extra day of travel. The embarkation and disembarkation was extremely smooth at Venice. We had no issues getting on the ship four hours before the departure. Customs was smooth and friendly and this was the easiest embarkation we have experienced. The Luminosa allows you to embark or disembark at any of the port calls but I'm unsure how smooth the process was at the other locations. Like other reviewers, we found the Luminosa to be average. Compared to other cruises, the food was disappointing. Mainly pasta dishes and you pay extra for the dishes that are included on other cruises such as steak and lobster. Costa cruise lines charges extra for things like coffee, bottled water, ice cream, and even pizza. We found the layout of the cruise ship to be very similar to other cruise lines of this size. Spa on the 9th floor near the front of the ship, cafeteria style dining on the ninth floor, restaurant on the 2nd floor, casino, bars, etc. Our classic cabin with a balcony was nice; easily accommodating two adults and two children. The cabin was well insulated but we did hear some children running in the cabin above us. Thankfully, no issue with neighbors that smoke. The kids club seemed fine. My nine year old only went a few times but there didn't seem to be any language barriers. The teen club, however, was given over for infant space. As a result, the teens didn't really have a place to hang out and they would meet on various parts of the ship. It was a poor compromise and our teenage daughter, whom usually likes the teen club, chose not to participate on this cruise. It is apparent the crew is overworked. We were told they work 13 hour days for nine months without a day off. Our steward was responsible for around 20 cabins and it showed. Although hard working and friendly, you could tell the staff was stressed. Also, be prepared for lots of Italians and a lack of personal space and no regard for queues. Of course, this happens with other nationalities as well. Also, the announcements must have been in at least three languages which got tedious after a while. We did not attend any of the entertainment options but other passengers had good reviews for the nightly entertainment. All in all, we had a good cruise thanks to the port calls. Costa Luminosa has the potential to be a great cruise ship. Unfortunately, the quality of the food and overworked staff prevent the experience from rising to the next level. I would recommend the ship to those who are excited about visiting European ports and the timing works or the Luminosa price is significantly less than the competitors. Otherwise, it would be wise to consider other cruise ships. Read Less

I took my 18 year old granddaughter on the cruise for a graduation present. I usually go on the Princess Line (although I had been on two other Costa cruise many years ago) but this cruise fit our timing and most of the ports we wanted to visit. I cannot say enough about how bad the food and service (in the restaurants) was: * The buffet lines are very long (we stood in line for 30 minutes several times) and you have to stand in different lines for different items (same for beverages - they do not take your drink order). *In the sit down restaurant for dinner, the service was really bad. One night my granddaughter received her entrée when others received their salad. One man at our table received his entrée when others received their dessert. *In the sit down restaurant for breakfast they do offer a limited menu that you can order from and they also have a small buffet set up. It is impossible to get a waiter to take your breakfast order so we ended up going to the buffet in the restaurant (at least we were seated and didn't have to hunt for a seat like you have to do in the buffet restaurant). *Coffee and tea isn't served/offered after breakfast. You need to go to a bar area and pay after breakfast. * They charge for pizza (not available until 7 pm), ice cream and hamburgers. They do offer a hamburger at the grill by the pool but it isn't very good, and the grill is not always open (our at sea day the grill was closed). The grill is the only place to get French fries. * You have to pay for room service (other than coffee/tea, cereal, muffins). Plus you need to have a premium room in order to get room service. * The sit down restaurant is only open for lunch for 1 1/2 hours. If you go on an excursion it's not an option. * All cruise lines have specialty restaurants, but Costa also has a section on their dinner menu that have items that you need to pay for. * Other cruise lines have one side of the dinner menu that you can order these items at any time (on Princess, you can get shrimp cocktail at any dinner). The choices on Costa were a couple pasta dishes (and they were not good). Shrimp was never offered except for one night and the entrée was pasta with shrimp (there was ONE, tiny shrimp on the pasta). * The only time a steak was offered was on formal night - then we received a well done piece of meat wrapped in puff pastry. * If you're traveling with children or teens (or a picky eater) there is basically nothing for them to eat during the day (have to wait for the pizza and hamburger sections to open at 7 pm). We ate off the ship as often as we could. Read Less

We’re experienced cruisers, but this was our first time on Costa. We selected this cruise because it sailed from Venice (which we love) and because there were a couple of the ports that we hadn’t visited previously. The embarkation process went smoothly and we were delighted with our cabin. It was a mid-level balcony and had plenty of storage space and room to spread out. We loved every port and felt that we had adequate time in each one. The food was surprisingly good!! The breakfast buffet had lots of choices that were properly prepared. Dinners were terrific. Absolutely no complaints with the food. We were pleasantly surprised that smoking was very restricted and did not cause us any problems. I was a bit concerned about taking a Costa cruise since it’s considered “budget.” Fortunately, those fears proved to be unfounded and I would gladly book another Costa Cruise. One other thing...a couple of days after we completed this cruise we took a 12 day MSC Cruise out of Barcelona. What a contrast! The MSC cabin (same category) was tiny and the food...oh my goodness. It was just awful. Never again! Read Less

We really enjoyed our costa cruise out of Barcelona 2 years prior to this one but this was a big disappointment. It started with the company charging us $100.00 just to put our friends names on the tickets that we bought, the travel company put our names on both cabins but no information was even entered. Anyway, they charged for everything right down to ping pong balls to play a game. We bought the drink package, but it took forever to get a drink, bartenders played games with the guests, ignoring them while cleaning up the bar, I guess they were looking for more tips. The staff was friendly but there wasn't much motivation to work since they already had their tips paid. Food was good and our waiter was excellent in the evening for dinner but the breakfast and lunch was miserable! It took forever to be served and the choices were very limited. We have been on many cruises and we enjoy it a lot but never again on Costa. We aren't that picky or demanding but this was very disappointing from previous cruises. There wasn't much in the way of entertainment, no trivia, or sports events. The room was kept at 75 degrees, so at night it was too warm so we had to keep the door open. My husband keep asking for them to check on the air conditioning but they said that was the lowest it would go down to. We had a mini suite so it was a good size and we were able to board earlier then everyone else, thank goodness because the lines were SO long to board. They said 2 hours to get our luggage but it turned into 5. I had a tray of drinks spilt on me and nothing to change into for 4 hours, quite a sticky wet four hours to wait. It just seemed like a bus going around, dropping people off and picking them up at different stops, we had a good time but we won't go with Costa again. Read Less